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PubMed2001

A cross-linguistic PET study of tone perception in Mandarin Chinese and English speakers.

PET was used in a cross-linguistic study to determine whether neural mechanisms subserving pitch perception differ as a function of linguistic relevance. We compared tone perception in 12 native Mandarin speakers, who use tonal patterns to distinguish lexical meaning, with that of 12 native speakers of a nontone language, English. Subjects were scanned under two conditions: a silent resting baseline and a tonal task involving discrimination of pitch patterns in Mandarin words. Both groups showed common regions of CBF increase, but only Mandarin speakers showed additional activation in frontal, parietal, and parieto-occipital regions of the left hemisphere; this latter finding indicates that language experience may influence brain circuitry in the processing of auditory cues. In contrast, only the English group showed activity in the right inferior frontal cortex, consistent with a right-hemispheric role in pitch perception.

Brain↗
PubMed2001

Pitch strength and pitch dominance of iterated rippled noises in hearing-impaired listeners.

Reports using a variety of psychophysical tasks indicate that pitch perception by hearing-impaired listeners may be abnormal, contributing to difficulties in understanding speech and enjoying music. Pitches of complex sounds may be weaker and more indistinct in the presence of cochlear damage, especially when frequency regions are affected that form the strongest basis for pitch perception in normal-hearing listeners. In this study, the strength of the complex pitch generated by iterated rippled noise was assessed in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Pitch strength was measured for broadband noises with spectral ripples generated by iteratively delaying a copy of a given noise and adding it back into the original. Octave-band-pass versions of these noises also were evaluated to assess frequency dominance regions for rippled-noise pitch. Hearing-impaired listeners demonstrated consistently weaker pitches in response to the rippled noises relative to pitch strength in normal-hearing listeners. However, in most cases, the frequency regions of pitch dominance, i.e., strongest pitch, were similar to those observed in normal-hearing listeners. Except where there exists a substantial sensitivity loss, contributions from normal pitch dominance regions associated with the strongest pitches may not be directly related to impaired spectral processing. It is suggested that the reduced strength of rippled-noise pitch in listeners with hearing loss results from impaired frequency resolution and possibly an associated deficit in temporal processing.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Carbamazepine induced pitch shift and octave space representation.

Octave-circular pitch perception, the repetition of pitch scale qualities when surpassing the octave interval, has been observed in behavioral data from humans and monkeys, but the underlying anatomy and physiology is still unknown. Here we analyze octave circularity in a concert pianist with absolute pitch, both under medication with the neurotropic drug carbamazepine (CBZ) and without medication. Analysis of 4619 responses in a pitch identification task revealed an internal tone-scale representation, based on the norm-tone scale re A4=440 Hz, with an octave-circular pattern of strongly and weakly represented tones. CBZ caused a global down-shift of pitch (ca. 1 semitone at 500 Hz), but no down-shift of the octave-circular pattern of tone characteristics. This pattern was similar in the six tested octave ranges (32.7-2093 Hz), both under the control and the CBZ condition. Pattern repetition always occurred at octave intervals and did not reflect the stretched octaves of piano tuning. The results indicate that CBZ influences pitch detection peripheral of an octave-circular pitch representation. Thus they support previous evidence for pitch detection in the auditory midbrain and for octave-circular pitch mapping in the auditory thalamus.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1980

Neural interspike intervals and pitch.

In a recent paper, Whitfield [1979] reported that time intervals between successive nerve impulses were not necessarily a correlate of pitch. This conclusion was reached by considering harmonics outside the dominant region for pitch perception [Ritsma, 1967]. The pitches perceived by Whitfield's subjects can be predicted from the harmonics present in the dominant region, and time intervals corresponding to those pitches would have been present in nerve fibers with characteristic frequencies close to that region.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

Brains that are out of tune but in time.

It is estimated that about 4% of the general population may have amusia (or tone deafness). Congenital amusia is a lifelong disability for processing music despite normal intellectual, memory, and language skills. Here we present evidence that the disorder stems from a deficit in fine-grained pitch perception. Amusic and control adults were presented with monotonic and isochronous sequences of five tones (i.e., constant pitch and intertone interval). They were required to detect when the fourth tone was displaced in pitch or time. All amusic participants were impaired in detecting the pitch changes, and showed no sign of improvement with practice. In contrast, they detected time changes as well as control adults and exhibited similar improvements with practice. Thus, the degraded pitch perception seen in the amusic individuals cannot be ascribed to nonspecific problems with the task or to poor hearing in general. Rather, the data point to the presence of a congenital neural anomaly that selectively impairs pitch processing.

Auditory Perceptual Disorders↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Pitch detection of dynamic iterated rippled noise by humans and a modified auditory model.

Iterated ripple noise (IRN) is a broadband noise with temporal regularities, which can give rise to a perceptible pitch. Since the perceptual pitch to noise ratio of these stimuli can be altered without substantially altering their spectral content, they have been useful in exploring the role of temporal processing in pitch perception [Yost, W.A., 1996. Pitch strength of iterated rippled noise, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100 (5), 3329-3335; Patterson, R.D., Handel, S.,Yost, W.A., Datta, A.J., 1996. The relative strength of the tone and noise components in iterated rippled noise, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100 (5), 3286-3294]. A generalised IRN algorithm is presented, in which multiple time varying temporal correlations can be defined. The resulting time varying pitches are perceptually very salient. It is also possible to segregate and track multiple simultaneous time varying pitches in these stimuli. Temporal auditory models have previously been shown to account for the perception of IRNs with static delays [Patterson, R.D., Handel, S.,Yost, W.A., Datta, A.J., 1996. The relative strength of the tone and noise components in iterated rippled noise, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100 (5), 3286-3294]. Here we show that some simple modifications to one such model [Meddis R., Hewitt, M.J., 1991. Virtual pitch and phase sensitivity of a computer model of the auditory periphery I. Pitch identification, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, 2866-2882] allow it to track moving correlations, and also improve its performance in response to static correlations.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

Enhancing temporal cues to voice pitch in continuous interleaved sampling cochlear implants.

The limited spectral resolution of cochlear implant systems means that voice pitch perception depends on weak temporal envelope cues. Enhancement of such cues was investigated in implant users and in acoustic simulations. Subjects labeled the pitch movement of processed synthetic diphthongal glides. In standard processing, noise carriers (simulations) or pulse trains (implant users) were modulated by 400 Hz low-pass envelopes. In modified processing, carriers were modulated by two components: (1) Slow-rate (<32 Hz) envelope modulations, conveying dynamic spectral shape changes crucial for speech; (2) a simplified waveform (e.g., a sawtooth) matching the periodicity of the input diphthong. In both normal listeners and implant users performance was better with modified processing, though temporal envelope cues were less effective with higher F0. Factors contributing to the advantage for modified processing may include increased modulation depth and use of a modulation waveform featuring a rapid onset in each period, resulting in a clearer representation of F0 in the neural firing pattern. Eliminating slow-rate spectral dynamics, so that within-channel amplitude changes solely reflected F0, showed that dynamic spectral variation obscured temporal pitch cues. Though significant, advantages for modified processing were small, suggesting that the potential for developing strategies delivering enhanced pitch perception is limited.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2006

Virtual pitch in a computational physiological model.

A computational model of nervous activity in the auditory nerve, cochlear nucleus, and inferior colliculus is presented and evaluated in terms of its ability to simulate psychophysically-measured pitch perception. The model has a similar architecture to previous autocorrelation models except that the mathematical operations of autocorrelation are replaced by the combined action of thousands of physiologically plausible neuronal components. The evaluation employs pitch stimuli including complex tones with a missing fundamental frequency, tones with alternating phase, inharmonic tones with equally spaced frequencies and iterated rippled noise. Particular attention is paid to differences in response to resolved and unresolved component harmonics. The results indicate that the model is able to simulate qualitatively the related pitch-perceptions. This physiological model is similar in many respects to autocorrelation models of pitch and the success of the evaluations suggests that autocorrelation models may, after all, be physiologically plausible.

Auditory Threshold↗
PubMed1994

Pitch ranking with nonsimultaneous dual-electrode electrical stimulation of the cochlea.

It has already been established that simultaneous activation of two intracochlear electrodes can evoke a pitch percept which is intermediate to that of either electrode when activated by itself. In the present study, this result has been extended to nonsimultaneous activation of nearby electrodes. Pitch perception was investigated for electric stimuli presented on one or two intracochlear electrode pairs. All stimuli were pulse trains of period 4 ms. In the dual-electrode stimuli, each period contained two biphasic pulses, separated by 0.4 ms, with one pulse for each electrode pair. These stimuli were compared with loudness-balanced single-electrode stimuli, having one pulse per period, generated on the same electrode pairs. Their pitches were ranked in a two-alternative forced-choice procedure by five experienced users of the 22-electrode implant manufactured by Cochlear Pty Limited. The studies showed that the pitch of a dual-electrode stimulus was intermediate to, and moved monotonically between, those of the component electrode pairs as the relative currents were altered in an orderly fashion. Intermediate pitches were achieved in all subjects at a range of cochlear positions, for electrode separations generally up to 3 mm. In half the cases a significantly different intermediate pitch could be created between adjacent electrodes. Further studies are necessary to establish whether intermediate pitches can be obtained at larger separations, as for simultaneous stimulation, and how they are affected by other factors such as the time between pulses or the spatial extent of the stimulation.

Cochlea↗
PubMed1987

Auditory psychophysics: spectrotemporal representation of signals.

The study of audition has widened: Having been concentrated in the 1960s on a few topics like pitch perception, binaural hearing, and fatigue, it now spans many more subjects. In the present paper we have emphasized the following topics: frequency analysis--this topic includes spectral integration and resolution, auditory excitation patterns, and processing of spectral information; temporal analysis--this topic refers mainly to studies in which abstract and stylized temporal variations in stimuli are used; binaural hearing--a subfield that still attracts a great deal of attention because of its unique character; pitch perception--of particular interest is this field for the perception of prosodic features of speech, but it also addresses fundamental questions of how the auditory system works; and pathology of hearing--in particular the effects of impaired hearing on speech perception and the relations among various hearing-test results. (This section was written in collaboration with W. A. Dreschler.) Many of the topics discussed have a direct relation to the capabilities of the auditory system in analyzing sounds--in particular, speech sounds. Experimentally, the problem can be approached from two sides: in one the stimuli are generated in a stylized form, and in the other they are taken as distorted versions of actual speech elements. In this paper we have described mainly the first category of experiments. Whereas we know for certain that the auditory system operates in the frequency-temporal domain, it is remarkable that the distinction between fields 1 and 2 (above) can still be made. Temporal effects in frequency analysis are often considered as perturbations, and the same is true for spectral effects in the study of temporal resolution. A true integration of time and frequency is often sought but seldom achieved as the focus of study. Of the many subjects that would ideally have received more coverage we mention two: the use of additional stimulation pathways to help patients with large hearing loss or deaf-blind people, and the use of a cochlear prosthesis ("cochlear implant"). Because we lacked space to cover these topics adequately, we omitted them completely. This indicates no undervaluation of these subjects of study or of the benefits they can provide to hearing-impaired people.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed1995

Perception of relative pitch with different references: some absolute-pitch listeners can't tell musical interval names.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effect of absolute-pitch possession on relative-pitch processing. Listeners attempted to identify melodic intervals ranging from a semitone to an octave with different reference tones. Listeners with absolute pitch showed declined performance when the reference was out-of-tune C, out-of-tune E, or F#, relative to when the reference was C. In contrast, listeners who had no absolute pitch maintained relatively high performance in all reference conditions. These results suggest that absolute-pitch listeners are weak in relative-pitch processing and show a tendency to rely on absolute pitch in relative-pitch tasks.

Female↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Explantation of residual effect].

The direct spatial-temporal description of oscillations of the internal ear basilar membrane, arbitrarily called "oscillographic vision" of these oscillations, made it possible to create a model for two systems of auditory perception of sound pitch [1]. On the basis of this model, the residual effect is explained by the action of the main system, the system of periodicity analysis. A procedure of calculating the zone of occurrence of the residuum is described. The predominance of the complex of low-frequency constituents of the residual sound is explained. A qualitative and a quantitative description of high-frequency rectangular pulse shifts induced by the action of the fine structure of these pulses are given. The assumption is made that these results can be used for comparing the accuracy of the two systems of sound pitch perception.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed1999

The role of envelope modulation in spectrally unresolved iterated rippled noise.

Iterated rippled noise (IRN) produces a pitch corresponding to the IRN delay. The pitch persists even when the sound is high-pass filtered at 12 times the reciprocal of the IRN delay, i.e., in the absence of resolved spectral peaks. Typically, when a sound produces a pitch in the absence of spectral cues, the pitch is explained in terms of periodic envelope modulation, for example, the pitch of a high-pass filtered cosine-phase harmonic complex, or the pitch of sinusoidally amplitude-modulated noise (SAMN). This study presents experiments designed to search for periodic modulation in IRN. The occurrence and significance of modulation is investigated in the envelope of the stimulus waveform as well as in the IRN envelope as represented after narrow-band filtering similar to that occurring in peripheral auditory filters. The results indicate that the envelope of band-pass filtered IRN reveals modulation but that the order of modulation (corresponding to the number of envelope maxima recurring every period) increases with increasing filter bandwidth. The occurrence of first-order modulation, like that of SAMN, is indirectly demonstrated for spectrally unresolved IRN in the lower unresolved frequency range between the 10th and 20th spectral peaks. The significance of recurring transients sometimes visible in the IRN waveform with respect to their contribution to the IRN pitch was assessed by replacing portions of the IRN period with random noise. The results of this experiment indicate that this 'waveform modulation' is not essential for the IRN pitch perception. The presence of temporal pitch in the absence of first-order modulation is demonstrated in two experiments involving the detection of phase delays and f0 differences for spectrally separated, narrow bands of harmonic complexes and IRNs.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1996

On the pitches of the components of a complex tone.

The pitches of the harmonics (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 11) of a complex tone were measured in a matching experiment. The harmonics to be matched were mistuned (8% or less) either positively, or negatively, or not at all. For all mistuned harmonics and all listeners the matching pitches were found to be exaggerations of the mistunings, i.e., the data exhibited pitch shifts with the same sign as the mistunings. This result is shown to be contrary to place models of pitch perception, such as the spectral pitch algorithm of Terhardt, in which pitch shifts are caused by the interaction of excitation patterns for the individual harmonics. An alternative model, in which pitch is determined by neural timing, also fails to account for the data. However, a hybrid model, combining effects of excitation pattern interaction with neural timing, does agree with most of the data.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Theory of Mind (ToM) and counterfactuality deficits in schizophrenia: misperception or misinterpretation?

BACKGROUND: Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to infer another person's mental state based upon interactional information. ToM deficits have been suggested to underlie crucial aspects of social interaction failure in disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, although the development of paradigms for demonstrating such deficits remains an ongoing area of research. Recent studies have explored the use of sarcasm perception, in which subjects must infer an individual's sincerity or lack thereof, as a 'real-life' index of ToM ability, and as an index of functioning of specific right hemispheric structures. Sarcastic detection ability has not previously been studied in schizophrenia, although patients have been shown to have deficits in ability to decode emotional information from speech ('affective prosody'). METHOD: Twenty-two schizophrenia patients and 17 control subjects were tested on their ability to detect sarcasm from spoken speech as well as measures of affective prosody and basic pitch perception. RESULTS: Despite normal overall intelligence, patients performed substantially worse than controls in ability to detect sarcasm (d=2.2), showing both decreased sensitivity (A') in detection of sincerity versus sarcasm and an increased bias (B'') toward sincerity. Correlations across groups revealed significant relationships between impairments in sarcasm recognition, affective prosody and basic pitch perception. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate substantial deficits in ability to infer an internal subjective state based upon vocal modulation among subjects with schizophrenia. Deficits were related to, but were significantly more severe than, more general forms of prosodic and sensorial misperception, and are consistent with both right hemispheric and 'bottom-up' theories of the disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Voice perception: Sex, pitch, and the right hemisphere.

The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined the neurophysiological processing of voice information. The impact of the major acoustic parameters as well as the role of the listener's and the speaker's gender were investigated. Male and female, natural, and manipulated voices were presented to 16 young adults who were asked to judge the naturalness of each voice. The hemodynamic responses were acquired by a 3T Bruker scanner utilizing an event-related design. The activation was generally stronger in response to female voices as well as to manipulated voice signals, and there was no interaction with the listener's gender. Most importantly, the results suggest a functional segregation of the right superior temporal cortex for the processing of different voice parameters, whereby (1) voice pitch is processed in regions close and anterior to Heschl's Gyrus, (2) voice spectral information is processed in posterior parts of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and areas surrounding the planum parietale (PP) bilaterally, and (3) information about prototypicality is predominately processed in anterior parts of the right STG. Generally, by identifying distinct functional regions in the right STG, our study supports the notion of a fundamental role of the right hemisphere in spoken language comprehension.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1990

Perceived pitch of vibrotactile stimuli: effects of vibration amplitude, and implications for vibration frequency coding.

1. The effect of changes in amplitude on the perceived pitch of cutaneous vibratory stimuli was studied in psychophysical experiments designed to test whether the coding of information about the frequency of the vibration might be based on the ratio of recruitment of the PC (Pacinian corpuscle-associated) and RA (rapidly adapting) classes of tactile sensory fibres. The study was based on previous data which show that at certain vibration frequencies (e.g. 150 Hz) the ratio of recruitment of the PC and RA classes should vary as a function of vibration amplitude. 2. Sinusoidal vibration at either 30 Hz or 150 Hz, and at an amplitude 10 dB above subjective detection thresholds was delivered in a 1 s train to the distal phalangeal pad of the index finger in eight human subjects. This standard vibration was followed after 0.5 s by a 1 s comparison train of vibration which (unknown to the subject) was at the same frequency as the standard but at a range of amplitudes from 2 to 50 dB above the detection threshold. A two-alternative forced-choice procedure was used in which the subject had to indicate whether the comparison stimulus was higher or lower in pitch (frequency) than the standard. 3. Marked differences were seen from subject to subject in the effect of amplitude on perceived pitch at both 30 Hz and 150 Hz. At 150 Hz, five out of the eight subjects reported an increase in pitch as the amplitude of the comparison vibration increased, one experienced no change, and only two experienced the fall in perceived pitch that is predicted if the proposed ratio code contributes to vibrotactile pitch judgements. At 30 Hz similar intersubject variability was seen in the pitch-amplitude functions. 4. The results do not support the hypothesis that a ratio code contributes to vibrotactile pitch perception. We conclude that temporal patterning of impulse activity remains the major candidate code for pitch perception, at least over a substantial part of the vibrotactile frequency bandwidth.

Female↗